Attack of the mutant brinjal

This one's a no-brainer. You have the shadowy, presumably profit-hungry, conglomerate. I am imagining people in dark suits sipping scotch in a golf-course-sized boardroom. Then you have the myopic government bureaucrats who are hand-in-glove with the men in the dark suits. And finally, you have the underdog - a few lonely crusaders who have nothing but conviction and placards on their side. Who do you pick?

Common sense and Hollywood dictate that the lonely crusaders are right. The suits and the bureaucrats are wrong. But in any case, since the suits are in power the thing of destruction will be unleashed. People will turn into zombies, bats will turn vicious, grasshoppers will turn carnivorous, etc.

The problem of course is that this time it is for real. And the thing of destruction (possibly) is a mutant vegetable. So what is so scary about BT Brinjal? To me a brinjal by itself is scary enough. A brinjal modified to include a toxin gene from a soil bacteria called Bacillus Thuringenesis (hence the name BT) even more so. The primary question is - why do we need it? Going by reports I have read, it is not we -the consumers who need it, but they - the producers, who do. Apparently, the genetically modified brinjal will produce toxins that will kill the major insect pest in brinjal - the Fruit and Shoot Borer. My immediate contention is that any insect with a name that interesting deserves a second chance. It brings to mind pictures of English aristocrats on hunting expeditions.

Anyway, I digress. The reason for BT Brinjal being doubly scary is that not only has there been no independent testing done to check if it is safe for human consumption, there has been no testing done, whatsoever, to assess the ecological effects of this brinjal. For example, does it kill only the Fruit and Shoot Borer or is it such a vicious creature that other well-meaning insect pests must also walk on tip-toes around it? And what impact does it have on the soil? Will it annoy ancient extra-terrestial robotic machines who have been sleeping peacfully under the earth's crust for the last few thousand years? Who knows?

And until they can conclusively prove to me otherwise, I say NO to BT Brinjal. Greenpeace has a very good briefing document on the issue. Anyone interested can access it here: http://greenpeace.in/safefood/faq/. It is a lot more informative (and accurate) than this blog. You can also sign an online petition to stop the BT Brinjal if you are convinced, like me, that it is not the right thing to do. As an addendum, many of the states, including Andhra Pradesh, have already sent representations to the central government that they do not want this mutant creature in their land.

This is one time I think we can change the script. And stop the men in the dark suits before they do something stupid.